Shallow Storms
by Nerumi H
Summary: To be rewarded a taste of the ripe world far beneath the clouds, and end his silent misery in Skyloft. To be the hero. To have freedom. SS. Pipit.


.title.: **Shallow Storms**

.summary.: **To be rewarded a taste of the ripe world far beneath the clouds, and end his silent misery in Skyloft. To be the hero. To have freedom. SS.**

.characters.: **Pipit – Link**

.warnings.: **Language.**

.a/n.: **Maybe I just hate tiny Skyloft because of how often I ran off the edge at nights. Hm.**

**I'm on a Zelda roll lately! Enjoy and PLEASE review! Every single one means a lot!**

**(Uhm? Apparently there are islands other than Skyloft, as in, actual city islands. Was not aware. This still somehow manages to be relevant.)**

**How do people write Link? ? It's really hard ahhh!**

**X**

Pipit watched Link.

The blonde boy—one he used to know by his slacking attitude, his teenage tendencies, a victim to the vice of sleep; someone who once needed constant supervision—was assuring himself that his equipment was reattached solidly from the past resting night in Skyloft. He was standing at the edge of the wooden pier, a set-off point for Loftwing races and a place for people to shoo their children away from.

Link was getting ready to go again.

He was never around nowadays, too busy with fulfilling responsibilities on the world below, leaving behind the strangling smallness of this island for the big, bad world down there. Pipit had seen him before, when the other thought his trickery wasn't going to be noticed—he'd circle in looping swoops around the island so villagers would see he was around, then at the last moment, sear through the air and down under the clouds. Vanished. His Loftwing would resurface without his master, desperately batting away the floss of sweaty clouds from where they clogged the feathers. It would retreat, then, to a place far off where the Loftwings slept that no one knew, since it certainly wasn't on this island.

Pipit was a senior knight and a patroller, and there was nothing to patrol. He'd seen every inch of this place. He'd seen every inch by the age of six, tugging at his mother's hand curiously, but even the narrow caves were no immense fascination to a child. This place was simply too small. He always felt it, the crushing, close presence of each border, the same people who knew you all too well. The lazy cerulean rivers, the crisply scented emerald grass, the thieving Remlits and the jewel-like butterflies. The ghostly shack under the graveyard. Everyone's home, inside and out, the furniture that never changed and the under-dozen selections of wares that were sold by all the same people for all the same purposes. The borders. Everyone knew you. Everyone had you in fist's reach, and you had to create alliances and friendships and lie through your teeth everyday because you couldn't argue or hate. You'd only hurt yourself, seeing them every day, no escape.

He wanted freedom. Goddesses, Pipit wanted freedom.

What was he doing, praying to them? He was not a strict religious in class, but he knew this was not the way it was supposed to be. It was dangerous, there, and on the surface by prophecy the people were supposed to live in solitude and silence and happiness. When Link resurfaced every week or so, new stories of sandships and oceans and forests and other things Pipit didn't understand brimming at his lips, he also brought fresh injuries. Things that were not fathomable for those who lived here in their safe, oblivious greenery. Bruises blooming, gashes yawning wide open like something inside was pushing its way out of the eggshell-crackles of his bones. Crusted blood sticking into his sweaty skin, crumbling off his face when he would give Pipit an exhausted grin and say, "Well, it wasn't Remlits," when Pipit would demand what happened.

It was dangerous and scary but he wanted it. Knight's Academy! What a bloody laugh! They didn't need knights, here. The biggest threat was the waterfall that sunk through the clouds. Pipit wondered if Link could feel the water as rain when he was on the surface.

He couldn't help but feel a bit betrayed that he was stuck here. Betrayed by _everyone._

Link backed off a step to ready his race off the edge, his tasting of air none of them had ever had.

Betrayed by the goddesses for his fate, betrayed by himself for not being quite good enough to be the one to bear that martyr's silver sword.

Hadn't he proved he was worthy? Fuck, he'd tried his hardest, he'd worked himself to the bleeding bone and here he was, knocking pathetic stray Remlits with a blunt blade.

Link pushed off, tearing the ground with steps he'd done hundreds of times, with more meaning than the rest of them. Launched into the air and a whistle tore across Pipit's ears, a whining screech that was answered with the loyal cawing of the Loftwings. The Hero, as if he was from some storybook—the same, bland stories, all around this little island in the sky because no one knew anything else, there _was _nothing else—to save the Princess.

Sometimes, Link would resurface from the real world, stumbling bloodied and severely fatigued into the little sliver of life that must feel like merely a fantasy to him. A little corner, a cage. Pipit felt that too. The vast surface world was so close beneath his feet but to jump would kill him.

Pipit would tend to him, the two locked away in Pipit's room because Link didn't want anyone else to see him battered and damaged, he didn't want suspicions. As if he was good at hiding his long, long disappearances from Skyloft. No one could hide here.

Pipit would unroll bandages and the dorm floor would be littered with damp cloths stained a red that seemed too vibrant to be real and Link would rest his head against the posts of Pipit's bed, routinely sighing every once in a while. A forlorn, empty sigh.

And earlier this night, a night after Pipit fought with his mother again (the injustice, they lived on a fucking modest serving of land with no trades and no culture and nothing and somehow his family was in _poverty_), the two had been sitting and mending in silence when Pipit asked in a low voice, "Why do you come back here?"

Link had stayed quiet for a moment, something Pipit was used to on the boy. Just lately, it was getting worse. Was there anyone to talk to down on the surface? Link had told tales about the Gorons and the people who mined in the dirt and the almost-bird-like Kikwis—diverse, flavourful, exciting new people. Of course he had people to talk to. Maybe it was _here_ that shut him up.

He finally spoke, his voice grating a little. "What d'you mean?"

"All this," Pipit gestured at the assortment of decorative injuries, "has to be from some adventure. One too dangerous for someone who hasn't even graduated yet." Link snorted half a laugh; Pipit tried to smile with his own words. "Something exciting, though. Why do you come back to this...mediocrity?"

Link didn't answer very quickly. Pipit gently washed off a streak of blood from the inside of Link's calf, thinking of how stupid it was for him to have been taught all this medical instruction when the most that happened here were torch burns. Link didn't even move as Pipit dampened a second strip of fabric with elixir, adding it with pressure to the newly adorned gash.

"It's home," Link answered simply but he didn't sound convinced.

Pipit shook his head, disbelieving. He pushed a little harder until the skin began to make a light sizzling sound, sewing back together. Luv's quality potions. Not like there was anything to compare it to. "You shouldn't be where there's nothing for you, Link. You're the hero for Zelda."

"I'm the hero for Skyloft, too."

And this time Pipit snorted a rude scoff. "Skyloft doesn't need saving. Skyloft doesn't need anything."

"You sound like it does." Link turned his head against the post; his hair, made into a knotted, wind-swept mess by the same causes of these injuries, matted even more on the movement. His blue eyes were hovering on the back of Pipit's neck as the older boy rummaged through the bandages. "You're jealous of me."

Pipit immediately tore his glare up to Link, merely the idea of it scorning him. Jealous? He was infuriated with envy. Link had no idea. "I just want what's rightfully mine."

Link had only been joking, so spoke the lopsided smile on his face that abruptly vanished when Pipit snapped at him.

Pipit continued, irate. "It's rightfully all of ours. Everyone who got chained here in this cage. My life's going to run out and I wouldn't have done anything, just worked towards a title that means nothing in a world where—nothing amounts to anything. But you—you've got everything."

"This is everything to you?" Link asked carefully, pointedly letting his own gaze guide the other's in observation of his mortal injuries. Nicks and cuts and splintered ends like a wind-battered leaf.

"It's _something,_ which is more than I can say about here."

Then they both lapsed into a silence, moonlight lazily rolling along the rumples in Pipit's bedspread and the blood Link was leaving behind on it. There was nothing left for Pipit to say, no other points to make, his idea as simple as living here was. He sewed up a gouging stab wound on Link's chest that the blonde boy had only barely managed to stem the blood flow of with a potion when first afflicted, but the movement and unreliability of potions had opened it up again. It was during this careful work that he realised Link had fallen asleep—something the hero probably deserved after all this arduous, treacherous work.

He realised just then, his immense flame of fury, resentment, longing for adventure—a reason to step a little further, a reason to find a path or better yet, create one. Feel the sun through a forest's foliage on his skin, run to the edges of the world and find himself in somewhere completely new, not plummeting to an honourless death in an abyss of empty air. He wanted to feel this much pain and know the pride in it. He wanted to save something just out of reach, understand what the goddesses had really dreamed for them; really live.

He wanted to have something to throw him into a sleep as deep as the one displayed before him— he wanted to feel completely drained and spent and close to dying.

He put away his things and let Link sleep there, instead going outside into the Skyloft midnight air, as chill as it always was. The same pattern of clouds and moon hung in the atmosphere, stoic and aiming all the silver light to the world where only the lucky seemed to live. He paced to the very tip of the pier and looked down.

A wide stir of clouds rested, hovering in the emptiness, a cold, thick doorway to whatever wonders lied beneath.

He did not know how long he stood there, but suddenly Link was loping up to him, equipment returned to his body, weighted, tired eyes, the bandages and white scars provided by the potions as bright as iron in the moonlight's glint.

"Leaving already?" Pipit asked.

"Evil won't wait for me," Link replied, shrugging. He couldn't smother the wince at his own gesture.

Of course he was going back—hurt and tired, a hero from the stories. Important. Those below the clouds...the spirits of the plants and the rivers and those rocky mounds he'd called mountains, the lava-dwelling people and the forest people, they were all relying on him and his grand task. It wasn't just about Zelda anymore, it was about that _world._

And here they stood, Pipit watching in silence. Link gave him a wan smile, touched his shoulder in a way he wouldn't have before all of this, letting his fingers rest there in a comforting weight.

"I'll see you soon."

"I'll be waiting."

And Link backed off at the ready for his grand escape, his body bitten but standing tall and strong, every part of him alight with the power and meaning he knew he had.

And with a dive into the cold air, Link was gone.

Pipit stared emptily at the soft undulating clouds, the slits of green and black that peeked through, the boy vanishing through the midnight mist.

He just wanted to feel significant in the world that was ready to accept it.


End file.
